


Tumblr Drabbles

by Siavahda



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Incest everywhere, Lightbringer Princes, M/M, Runed, none of this should be considered canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-11 17:42:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 14,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2077230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siavahda/pseuds/Siavahda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of drabbles cross-posted from tumblr. Nothing should be considered canon for either the Runed or Lightbringer Princes verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. LP: Smoke and Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> These drabbles will probably primarily be ideas from Runed (none of which should be considered part of the canon series) and the Lightbringer Princes verse (same applies - I hope to write it in novel form at some point and things from the drabbles will probably change). Chapters will be marked R for Runed, LP for Lightbringer Princes, and O for Other or random.
> 
> The Lightbringer Princes verse is an AU of Runed. Basically, Jocelyn convinced Valentine not to go through with the Uprising. But when she died giving birth to their third child, he went ahead and declared war on the Clave - and won. Now he's King of Idris and his sons, Jonathan, Janim, and Symeon, are princes. Lightbringer Princes is their story.

   No one believes him, but Jonathan remembers Symeon’s birth.

   He is two years old. His mother is not well. She is holding Jonathan’s newest brother inside her, but there is something wrong. He understands this, although no one takes the time to tell the toddler so. They don’t have to. Even at two years old, he knows the taste of fear and panic in the air. It is smoke and sugar.

   When he slips from under the eyes of his nursemaid – the woman locked in frantic conversation with another servant, too occupied to notice him – and catches a glimpse of his mother, he understands more.

   He can smell her sweat, and the scent of it is wrong. He can hear her breathing, and the quick, fluttering rhythm of it is wrong. He can hear her heartbeat, and it is wrong too.

   He understands it all, before someone snatches him up and hurries him away.

   In the nursery, he plays solemnly with Jace and strains to listen to his mother’s heartbeat through the walls. He hears her when she begins to pant, and he hears her when she screams. There are other sounds – his father’s voice, and a midwife’s – but he ignores them. They are not important.

   He listens to his mother’s heartbeat, and he hears the moment when it stops.

   Jonathan does not grieve. Grief, sorrow, pain; these are things he does _not_ understand, not the way he will realise, in a few years, that he is supposed to. He hears his father howl, and is more interested in the shriller, higher wail of a baby that winds through his cry.

   His newest brother. Jonathan wants to meet him.

   But it is some time before they are introduced. Jonathan is impatient, and restless, and does not soothe Jace when the one-year-old slips into a tantrum. He lets his brother shriek and beat his chubby fists in the air, so that when the nurse comes to soothe him the way is clear for Jonathan to slip free again.

   When the adults discover him, and what he did, later, they cannot work out how he managed to find the newborn. They know he can hear more than other Shadowhunters, but the manor is full of men and women in gear, full of their sorrow and anger and the clank and crash of their weapons. There is shouting and tears and Valentine’s raging grief filling the children’s home like smoke. There is far too much noise for the two-year-old to have tracked a quiet heartbeat he doesn’t even know yet.

   No one has ever asked him, because they think he doesn’t remember. But he does. Jonathan remembers a sensation like hearing a song in the dark – a soft, quiet song, scared and alone, echoing in his head. Jace heard it too, that was why he cried, but Jace was too small to follow it. He could barely walk yet. It was up to Jonathan to listen hard and track down the singer, weaving between the longer legs and shouting voices in the hallways.

   He found his newest brother lying alone in a room that stank of blood. Jonathan ignored the smell, and the pale, still body lying on the bed, and went directly to the cradle in the corner. But it was too high for him – he couldn’t even _see_ the small, warm thing he could feel was inside it. “Ssh,” he told the baby, even though he wasn’t crying – not aloud, not in any way anyone else could hear. “I’m here now. I’ll get you out.”

   He dragged a stool half again as tall as he was over to the cradle, and climbed it, and peered down at the baby. “See? I told you.”

   Deep brown eyes blinked up at him, swirling with flecks of hazel-gold and almost-black. Jonathan had seen full grown Shadowhunters flinch away from the pitchy darkness of his eyes, but the baby gurgled happily and reached up with tiny arms, sea-anemone fingers clenching and unclenching eagerly. Jonathan obliged, carefully reaching down to pick him up. He remembered to pull one of the blankets up with the baby, because small things got cold. “And you’re _very_ small,” he told his brother as he climbed down the stool. It was true – the newborn was even smaller than Jonathan’s dim memories of a baby Jace, small enough for a strong two-year-old to hold and carry. “But it’s all right. You’ll get bigger, and I’ll look after you until you do. Jace will help, when _he’s_ big enough.”

   He carried the baby past the cooling corpse of their mother without glancing at it; carried his brother all the way back to the nursery. By the time they reached it, those brown eyes had fallen closed, the tiny face nuzzled against Jonathan’s chest like a puppy, delicate fingers curled in his big brother’s shirt. Jonathan knew newborn babies could hold onto things tightly enough to hang from a washing line (there had been a great deal of screaming involved, after, and the child’s parents had not come back), and it was very smart of his brother to hold onto him. Jonathan would look after him.

   The baby was sleeping, and thus quiet, but the nursemaids had noticed Jonathan’s absence by then. “Be silent,” he told them, in the same cold, frosty voice he had heard his father use, when they shrieked and flailed. “He’s _asleep_.” Small things slept a lot, he remembered that – they needed sleep to get bigger.

   They tried to take his brother away from him, and Jonathan growled, clutching him tighter. The women paused, but then persisted, and mother had told him he was not allowed to bite people but mother was dead. They tried to pry his brother away and Jonathan sank his teeth into their hands hard enough to taste copper and make them yell. He laughed, because the shapes their faces made were funny.

   “Fetch Valentine,” someone said, and someone else asked “What if he hurts the baby?” and Jonathan bared bloody teeth at them. They were stupid. Stupid people weren’t allowed near his brother. _Either_ of his brothers.

   When his father burst into the nursery, his eyes wild, Jonathan was in the corner, holding the baby and trying to think of a way to steal Jace away from the fools supposed to look after him.

   “Jonathan…” His father’s voice was hoarse as he knelt in front of the toddler. “Will you give me your brother?”

   “No!” Jonathan snarled. The nurses flinched. Jonathan clutched the baby to him. “He’s _mine!_ ”

   “He _is_ yours,” Valentine agreed. “But you’re too young to take care of him properly. Will you let us do it, until you’re old enough?”

   Jonathan bared his teeth. “You all forgot about him!” he accused, growling. “He was crying!”

   His father flinched. It was not the same as the nurses’ fear-flinch. His eyes were wet. “We did,” Valentine said softly. “I’m sorry, Jonathan. You’re a good boy for looking after your brother. I’m very proud of you. But I promise I won’t forget him again. I’ll take care of him properly, if you let me have him.”

   Jonathan considered this. His father always kept his promises, but… “Swear,” he ordered, and everyone who was there, everyone who told the story later agreed that the boy spoke as if he were already on the throne, already an adult. “Swear to look after him. _Properly_.”

   His father’s lips twitched. Jonathan knew that was supposed to mean someone was happy, but Valentine looked sad. “I swear by the Angel to always look after him.” He said softly.

   “ _Properly_.”

   That twitch again. “Properly,” Valentine echoed.

   Jonathan considered this. “Very well,” he said graciously. He allowed their father to carefully take Jonathan’s brother, watching him warily, ready to snatch him back at a moment’s notice. Their father held the baby like he was made of glass, cradling him close, but his breathing was ragged as he bent to kiss the newborn’s forehead.

   “Are you going to collapse?” Jonathan asked. Because if so, his father should give the baby back to Jonathan.

   “No, Jonathan, I’m not going to collapse.” There was wetness on Valentine’s face when he raised his head. Tears, Jonathan remembered. Jace made them sometimes, when he was upset or wanted something. “I’m just sad.”

   “Why?” Jonathan asked curiously. “He’s all right. I took care of him.”

   His father smiled, a small curve of his mouth. “You did.” He glanced down at Jonathan’s brother. “Would you like to know his name?”

   Jonathan shrugged. “I already know it.” He smiled at his brother, blood on his teeth. “He’s Symeon.”


	2. LP: Aconitum

   The Downworlders call Jace Wolfsbane, and say that Jonathan has a necklace of lycanthrope teeth, which is always growing longer.

   It is true.

   This is why.

*

   When Symeon was nine years old, Jonathan kissed Isabelle.

   It wasn’t that Symeon saw it: he didn’t. He only heard about it later, when Jonathan crept into Jace’s room that night to tell his brothers about it.

   “But…why would you do that?” Symeon had asked, bewildered and hurt.

   Jonathan had shrugged. “I thought I ought to see what it was like,” he said. “I’m probably going to marry her someday, after all.”

   “ _What?_ ” Symeon had never met a married couple – well, maybe some of the servants were married, but if they were he didn’t know about it – but he knew that being married to someone meant you loved them more than anything. “Why would you marry _Isabelle?_ ” He looked at Jace. “Tell him,” he urged. “He’s not going to marry Izzy, is he? He’s supposed to marry _us_.”

   Both his brothers had laughed, and Jace had ruffled his hair. “Brothers don’t marry brothers, Symeon,” Jace told him. “Where did you get that idea?”

   Symeon had stared at him, uncomprehending. Dread, like a shadow across the sun, made him cold. “But I thought…”

   “It would be incest,” Jonathan said, amused. “And even _I_ know that it’s wrong. Sorry, kid. Brothers don’t love brothers like that.”

   “Oh,” Symeon whispered. He didn’t say anything else, and not long after that they went their separate ways to their own rooms. Symeon didn’t sleep at all.

   He spent the next week frantically searching through the library, hunting down every mention of the word Jonathan had used. _Incest_. He’d never heard it before, had never considered that maybe grown-up love – the kind with kissing and marriages and happily ever afters – _didn’t_ grow out of the bond between brothers. Didn’t everyone feel this way? Wasn’t everyone this close to their siblings? He’d thought his dead mother must be his father’s sister, and that was why he was so sad sometimes – because he’d lost something that Symeon couldn’t imagine not having, something much more important than kissing. How could you ever love some stranger more than – Symeon had thought _brother_ was just a word for part of yourself in another skin. Why else would you be bound by blood, if it wasn’t to hold the pieces of your soul together, to keep you together always?

   It didn’t take long, only a handful of entries in encyclopaedias and books of ethics, for that word _incest_ to bring Symeon’s world crashing down around him.  

   He ran from it. With tears streaming down his face he bolted, away from the books and the _word,_ the horrible, terrible word tearing through him like a bullet. His entire life, he’d always gone to his brothers when he was in pain, but now he couldn’t, because he was _sick_ , there was something _wrong_ with him. Even Downworlders didn’t want what he wanted, even _demons_ didn’t –

   He had to go. That was the only solution. He had to leave, before – before anyone found out, before they could hate him. He could go into the mundane world, he was sure. They wouldn’t find him there, and they’d never have to _know_.

   It was three years too early for the triquetra bond, three years too early for his brothers to have sensed his anguish and found him, stopped him. Symeon packed a knapsack and stole some food from the kitchens and no one was the wiser – his father locked in discussion with some of his lords, Jonathan at a lesson, Jace visiting the Lightwoods. The grooms saw him saddle up Nox, but Symeon was an expert rider even at nine, and had every permission to ride his stallion whenever he wanted.

   He was _not_ allowed to leave the manor grounds alone, but he never had before. Symeon was not a rule-breaker, and so no one had their eyes on him, confident in the surety that the youngest Morgenstern was polite and shy and always obedient to his father’s law. No one was watching when he galloped through the gates and vanished.

   All three Morgensterns knew the land around their home, but to varying degrees. Symeon had memorised maps, and he’d made trips to the homes of his father’s favourites – accompanied by the full might of his family. He and his brothers often rode and hunted in the immediate area, but once Nox carried him past the familiar landmarks Symeon began to realise that the world looked very different when it was not laid down in topography and centimetres.

   And it was a very, very long way to reach mundane lands. Symeon felt very small and very alone at the thought.

   But he was a Morgenstern, which meant that he didn’t flinch from hard things. He lifted his chin and gave Nox his head, and the powerful seraph-bred stallion devoured the miles.

   By all rights, the whole episode should have come to nothing but a slightly embarrassing family story. Valentine and his trackers would have found Symeon before long, and brought him home. There would have been a terrible scolding and a punishment, but both would have been born out of fear and worry and love, and that would have been the end of it. Symeon would have spent the rest of his life being gently teased for his terrible attempt at running away from home, but he ought to have suffered nothing worse than a little embarrassment.

   Instead, there was a pack of lycanthropes making a cautious foray into the Shadowhunter homeland, and they caught the scent of a lone Nephilim too close to the territory they had staked out for themselves.

   The Spanish Riding School of Vienna was home to the famous Lipizzaner horses. In the modern age, the Lipizzaners were called dancing horses – but once upon a time their dainty kicks and incredible bounding jumps had made them living weapons, as much a part of a soldier’s arsenal as a bayonet. The mundane world had moved on from a time when such things were necessary, and for the most part the Shadowhunter one had as well – horses weren’t much use hunting demons in nightclubs, or tracking vampires through a city. But seraph steeds were still trained, and those Nephilim raised in Idris still learned on them, and they were far more deadly than their mundane cousins had ever been.

   Nox reared and bugled when he sensed the werewolves, an equine scream that could be heard for miles in the dark – the first response of any lone seraph steed, a war-cry and a call for help. Symeon snapped out his blade and it glowed like starlight in the falling night, deftly keeping his seat, but ultimately he was nine years old, and between the horse and the boy he was the lesser threat. Yellow, green and red eyes came out of the shadows like jewels, and Nox’s hooves lashed out with a fierce animal scream. Wolves yelped and snarled, and blood ran; Nox pivoted and spun and leapt, kicking and biting, laying about himself and his rider like a black hurricane.

   Later, Symeon learned that the search party tracking him had heard Nox’s cry. They heard the horse’s shrieks of pain as the werewolves attacked en masse, and Symeon’s terrified scream as they dragged him from the saddle.

   His father had heard that.

   _Forget pride,_ Valentine had told his sons, when they were much younger than nine. _If you are alone and in danger, scream as loud as you can. Let others know where you are. Help might hear you._

   Help did hear, but they were too far and too late. By the time they arrived there was only a cluster of ruined werewolf corpses, skulls and ribcages crushed by Nox’s hooves, and the poor, brave horse, bleeding and broken-legged. Symeon’s seraph blade lay bloodied on the grass, but the Morgenstern princeling was gone.

*

   The wolves did not kill him out of hand, because as they pulled him from Nox’s back they saw, with their night-sharp eyes, the ring on his finger. The Morgenstern _M_ surrounded by stars.

   They knew who he was in an instant. They knew his _worth_.

   Even now, if anyone asks, Symeon does not remember anything. He does not remember how they tore strips from his shirt to bind his hands; he does not remember the taste of another strip gagging his mouth. He doesn’t remember the terror and the tears, or the animal stink of his captors. He doesn’t remember the moonlight on their teeth, or the bruises their hands left on his skin, or the horrible journey from Nox’s fallen body to the pack’s gathering place.

   He doesn’t remember thinking that maybe this is what he deserved.

   The lycanthropes moved camp the moment the hunting party came back with a royal hostage, hiding every trace of their presence so well that Symeon despaired, sure that no one could possibly track this pack. He was not far wrong. Only the fiercest, strongest band of wolves would dare to encroach on Shadowhunter land. They might have been stupid, to risk Valentine’s famous hatred of all things Downworlder; but they weren’t. They were canny and skilled.

   He doesn’t remember how they stripped him, either, and burned his clothes so any spells in them would be destroyed. He doesn’t remember how most of them laughed at his tears, easy in their own nakedness, or what it felt like to hear them discussing his fate – what and how much they might get for him, as if he were a slab of meat they meant to sell at market. And even when his brothers asked, even when Jonathan and Jace coaxed the story from him in whispers, late at night with them all curled up in Jonathan’s bed – even then, Symeon did not remember, and did not tell, how the pack leader pulled him into his lap and drew his teeth over Symeon’s throat.

   “Maybe we should send Valentine back a pup instead of a son,” he said mockingly. His hand was a fist in Symeon’s hair, holding the boy’s head to the side to pull his neck into a cruel arch. “What do you think, prince? Would your father reverse his laws if we changed you?” His breath was hot against Symeon’s throat, and Symeon still hears his voice in his nightmares. “Or would he put you down like a dog?”

   Symeon was crying too hard to answer, even when the wolf pulled his gag free.

   “And this is Valentine’s scion,” the monster snorted. “Pathetic.” He stroked a finger over his captive’s jaw – and then his blunt, human teeth sank into Symeon’s neck.

   Symeon does not remember screaming. He doesn’t remember the pack’s laughter, or how his knees hit the dirt when he was shoved from the leader’s lap. He does not remember how the bite – which would not infect him, from human teeth, but broke skin and made him bleed nonetheless – opened the floodgates.

   There are a great many wolves, and they hold a great many grudges towards his father. They have lost friends, mates, children to Valentine’s hunts and purges, and now they have his son.

   They gag him again, and then they hurt him.

*

   In the morning, they pry the ring from his finger and send it to his father. Bloody.

   They move camp again, while the messenger conveys their demands to Valentine.

   Both these things – the ring, and the messenger – are mistakes.

*

   They tell stories, still, of how his father poured molten silver down the throat of the werewolf who brought him his son’s ring. Of how his brothers stood and watched, and while the adult courtiers winced or gagged or looked away, pale and sick, the princes never even blinked.

   “You should have made it last longer,” is all Jonathan says, in the quiet after the wolf has finished dying.

*

   They say Valentine went down on his knees to beg the most powerful warlock in the world to find Symeon. Symeon isn’t sure he believes it – his father has never been the kind of man who can bend – but what _is_ true is that it’s his ring, and the blood on it, that lead the full force of the Nephilim’s rage to the pack’s door.

   When he tells this story, this is what Symeon says: he remembers the wolves surrounding him and Nox. He remembers the snarling, and Nox’s screams, and being dragged out of the saddle.

   And then – he says – he remembers his father. He remembers Valentine Morgenstern cutting through werewolves like the angel Michael, blazing and glorious and righteous in his wrath. And perhaps it is only the pain of his broken arm, but Symeon remembers looking at his father and seeing wings.

   He remembers, towards the end, that the pack leader snatches him up. “Not another step,” he snarls at Valentine, clutching Symeon like a doll, and Symeon is bruised and bloodied and his arm hangs badly, swollen and dark. He muffles a cry when the wolf shakes him, jolting it. “Or I’ll rip the pup’s throat out.”

   Valentine holds a seraph blade. It looks carved of ruby. “Don’t be scared, Symeon,” he says calmly, his eyes on the monster behind his son. “I’m here now.”

   The wolf growls, the sound made worse by his shifted teeth. “Step _back_ – ”

   He does not finish his sentence. He drops Symeon, who falls with a cry, and instantly his father is there, kneeling beside him on the ground and gathering him carefully close. Symeon shakes, and sobs, and his father hushes him and holds him tight, lets Symeon hide his face against Valentine’s shirt, away from the monster with the red blade still vibrating in his throat.

   “It’s all right,” his father swears, over and over. “It’s all right, Symeon. You’re safe now.”

*

   Valentine did change the laws, but not, perhaps, as Symeon’s kidnappers would have wanted. Nothing was different for vampires, but warlocks gained protection and gratitude. And as for werewolves – the Law ordered that all Children of the Moon be killed on sight.

   The edict holds to this day, and Jonathan’s necklace grows ever longer.


	3. LP: Destroy Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse of Jonathan and Symeon's first time.

“I – I didn’t know – ” Symeon’s head tipped back with a groan. “ _Ah_ , Raziel, _Jonah!_ ”

   Jonathan stilled his hips, something dark and hungry caught by Symeon’s startled pleasure like a predator by the sight of blood. “You didn’t know _what?_ ”

   Symeon whined, desperate and pleading. The sound tugged hard at Jonathan’s gut, but he made himself resist, leaning down to nuzzle Symeon’s jaw and rolling – not thrusting – his hips lazily against his little brother. “Didn’t know _what_ , Symeon?” he purred over Symeon’s low, needy little moan.

   “I – fuck, _fuck_ ,” Symeon hissed, his nails digging into Jonathan’s back so sweetly, little pinpricks of pain like kisses with teeth. “I didn’t – I didn’t think it would feel – ”

   He cut himself off, but he’d said enough; Jonathan snarled and surged forwards, and when Symeon’s head fell back with a cry Jonathan caught his chin, tilted his face so he could see the wrecked, dazed pleasure taking his little brother over, making him shake, making him _moan_.

   “You thought it would be only pain,” Jonathan said hoarsely, lust and ichor roaring in his ears like an ocean storm, like the end of the world, “and you still gave yourself to me?”

   “Yes,” Symeon gasped – like it was simple, like it was _nothing_ , and Jonathan took his mouth before he could say anything else, before he could forge more words into weapons to destroy Jonathan utterly. He kissed the daggers from Symeon’s tongue, and showed him just how good it could be.


	4. LP: A Pocket Full of Posies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Symeon is jealous of Alec.

   “Jace and the Lightwood boy look awfully friendly,” Jonathan drawled, coming to stand next to Symeon against the wall.

   “I know,” Symeon growled through gritted teeth. He brought his glass to his mouth and wished for something stronger than champagne, something that would dull the sharp, bloody fury twisting in his gut like a knife at the sight of Alexander Lightwood leaning in so close to Jace. Alec had soft brown hair and a face like a porcelain doll, and Symeon had barely spoken five words to the boy before today but he _loathed_ him. “By the Angel, who does he think he is?”

   Jonathan laughed softly and plucked the drink from Symeon’s fingers. “You’ve had too much of this, I think,” he chided. “You’re forgetting yourself, little brother. Jace isn’t ours yet.”

   Symeon snarled, and bared his teeth at a trashily-dressed passerby who paused in the hope of gossip. The woman scuttled off quickly. “He _is_ ours,” he said fiercely, his eyes cutting back to Jace. The middle Morgenstern was laughing at something Alec had said, and Symeon wondered how difficult it would be to burn out Lightwood’s runes from across the room. “He’s _always_ been ours.”

   “But he doesn’t know it yet,” Jonathan reminded him, gentleness twined with amusement. “Patience is a virtue, remember.”

   “Father would gut you if he heard you say that,” Symeon muttered. Just then Alec shyly put his hand on Jace’s arm, and Symeon snapped; he had a knife in his hand before he thought to reach for it. “That’s it, he’s dead.”

   With the ease of practise, Jonathan hooked his arm through his brother’s and pulled him back before he could take more than a few steps, neatly snatching the blade away and vanishing it. “You can’t kill the Lightwood heir, Symeon,” he chided. “Father likes his parents, remember?”

   “And I’d like their son,” Symeon purred. “His head, particularly. _On my wall_.”

   “Now you’re just being needlessly gruesome.” Jonathan’s lips twitched and his shoulders shook with suppressed laughter; he pulled Symeon away, sliding his hand to the small of his brother’s back. “Come on,” he murmured, slipping his fingers beneath Symeon’s jacket. “If you let Lightwood live, I’ll let you suck me off in the cloakroom.”

   Symeon laughed, golden and glittering so that heads turned toward the sound, drawn to the youngest Morgenstern princeling like flies to honey. Jonathan pulled him closer with a sudden flare of possessiveness, grateful for the masks that hid their identities and allowed him to stake his claim in public.

   “Deal,” Symeon said huskily. He stroked two fingers over his brother’s wrist, light and teasing and Jonathan growled.

   Symeon just smirked.


	5. LP: We All Fall Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Direct follow-up to Pocket Full of Posies. Warning for rape/non-con and somnophilia.

   Alec woke slowly, with the stinging burn of a rune on his wrist. The pain wasn’t enough to cut through the groggy, thick sensation in his head; he felt heavy and swollen, like a living bruise, and his eyelids seemed carved out of lead.

   When he finally managed to open them – exhaustion an almost corporeal presence in the marrow of his bones – it took him too many heartbeats to recognise his surroundings. He was on the floor of the cloakroom of the Morgenstern manor – there had been a masquerade ball – his mother had sent him to fetch her purse –

   It was physically painful to try and push himself up off the floor; his body screamed for sleep, and he ached to lie back down and close his eyes. But the realisation that he was naked sliced through the lethargy sharply, like the bite of a knife, and he scrabbled to his hands and knees, panic a swarm of bees under his skin. He hurt, not just in his wrist but all over; his jaw ached, his lips felt broken, there were bruises and bloody slices on his hips and upper legs, and – and a little higher, the blunt, torn pain knifing up his spine every time he moved…

   Trembling, he reached down and lightly brushed his hole with fearful fingers. The pain was a gasping revelation, ripped open and blinding, and his fingers came away wet with two substances, one instantly recognisable to any Shadowhunter and the other to any teenage boy; a little blood, and come, white and sticky-slick.

   He stared at it, uncomprehending for a long, long moment. The pieces refused to come together in his mind. This couldn’t be real.

   Nausea thickened in his throat, sick and overwhelming. Jerkily he wiped his fingers on the carpet; his hand was shaking, he noticed numbly.

   What happened? He threw his mind back desperately, because it was easier than focussing on the present: he remembered talking to Jace Morgenstern, and Maryse interrupting to ask Alec to go and find her beaded purse from the cloakroom. He’d asked Jace to wait for him; he’d gone to find the bag. And when he’d opened the cloakroom door…

   He’d frozen, shocked and staring at the sight of Jonathan Morgenstern with his head tipped back against the wall, his mask pushed carelessly back over his hair and his hands – his hands tangled in the hair of the young man hard at work between his legs.

   Jonathan Morgenstern. _Prince_ Jonathan. Was. He was –

   The loud, filthy sounds of the prince screwing the other man’s mouth hadn’t been loud enough to cover the door opening: Jonathan had opened his eyes and seen Alec, and snarled, the rich pleasure on his face twisting into rage, and then his paramour had turned, his lips wet and red and the eyes behind his black mask furious –

   Alec had stammered something – he couldn’t remember what – and tried to back hastily out of the doorway, but before he’d had the door half-closed the masked man had gone from his knees to standing right before Alec, so close Alec had seen the flecks of gold in his oakwood eyes and a drop of something white on the corner of his mouth.

   “I don’t think so,” the man had purred, closing his fingers around Alec’s wrist with a grip of steel. His fingertip had pressed hard directly over Alec’s fluttering pulse. “Since you interrupted, _you_ can be the one to satisfy him.”

   That was all Alec remembered; a burn like a rune being carved into his wrist, and then darkness, heavy and all-consuming. And then – waking naked and hurting on the floor. Bruised. Bloodied. R-rape –

   He couldn’t even _think_ the word.

   He lifted his hand, turning it to look at his wrist, searching for the source of the burn. This hand, too, shook, and the rune when he found it was blurry, like looking out through a window at rain. He blinked hard, trying to peer past it, and felt wetness spill onto his cheeks as his vision sharpened, finally allowing him to recognise the Mark: it was a rune for sleep, the kind healers used to keep at-risk patients in comas, or the Clave’s officers to subdue dangerous criminals.

   And it faded away as he watched, with a little golden shimmer like a mocking wink, as if it had been waiting for him to look and see it. It melted away entirely, leaving his skin untouched, with none of the usual silvery scar.

   Strange runes pointed to one person in all of Idris, and it really shouldn’t have made it worse, it shouldn’t have mattered at this point, but Alec jerked himself in half and retched, shaking and sick with tears streaking his face; that had been Symeon, Symeon Morgenstern in the mask, sucking down his Raziel-damned _brother_ , Marking Alec and laying him out to be raped, and, by the Angel – who? Who had it been? Jonathan? Symeon? Alec tried not to think about his sore mouth, the rawness in his throat, tried not to wonder if it had been them _both_. Or, Jace? Had Jace been in on it? Had he been laughing at Alec’s pathetic little crush, had he set this up? Had he –

   Alec gagged, his body convulsing painfully and his throat burned. Stomach acid and champagne and bitter whiteness spilled out of his mouth and onto the carpet, and he threw up again at the sight (the taste) of the come, the literally stomach-turning knowledge that yes, they’d had his mouth too, someone had pushed a cock between his slack, sleeping lips and he barely realised that he was crying. It felt worse than vampire blood, worse than ichor, worse than choking down holy water to nullify either one because what was going to cleanse this?

   And it was even worse, somehow, that he’d never – never even kissed anyone –

   His fingers brushed, not carpet, but paper, and he looked down at it. The pit of his stomach dropped out; it was a note, pinned to the carpet with a silver needle, and he picked it up and scanned it automatically. It was just a single line, but it froze his blood in his veins:

   _Stay away from our brother, or next time you’ll be awake for it._

   There was even a mocking postscript, in a different scrawl: _PS - don’t try using an_ iratze _. You’ll only make it worse._

   Beneath the text was another rune, a twisting knot, and as Alec’s eyes traced it the Mark lit up at the edges like an ember. It burst into flames and Alec dropped it, scrambling backwards despite his body’s protests, his heart pounding and his breath ripping out of his chest as the paper dissolved into ashes, a smear of white and grey on the carpet.

   _Next time you’ll be awake for it._

   He didn’t believe them about the _iratze_. Or maybe he just didn’t think; he crawled to the careless heap of his clothes and he just needed the pain to stop, he needed it wiped away, he needed to wake up from this and find it all not real. His fingers shook so badly that he dropped his stele when he finally got it out of his pocket, and it took four attempts before he had the rune finished, drawn clumsily on the meat of his upper arm.

   He felt the familiar, comforting burn, and cried with relief as a soft wave of angelic power swept over and through his broken body, gently brushing every wound, every bruise –

   And then the force grew sharp claws and molten-metal teeth, and Alec screamed.

*

   “What’s this about, father?” Symeon asked when all of them were settled. “I was in the middle of _The Republic_.”

   “You’ve read Plato a thousand times, Symeon,” Jace said before their father could. “It’ll wait a few minutes.”

   “Thank you, Jace,” Valentine said wryly. He examined his three sons for a moment, a small frown etched between his brows. “The Lightwoods have brought a serious accusation to my attention. It concerns the three of you.”

   Jace looked puzzled; Symeon frowned; Jonathan raised a single eyebrow in bored but silent question. “Maryse and Robert?” Symeon asked.

   “Yes.” Valentine met the eyes of his youngest squarely. “It appears that their eldest son, Alexander, was…assaulted at the ball two nights ago.”

   “ _Our_ ball?” Jonathan demanded. “Impossible. The security was perfect. No one uninvited was anywhere on the grounds.”

   “They claim his attackers were very much on the guest list.” Valentine’s eyes were unreadable. “They claim that you two,” he pointed at Jonathan and Symeon, “are the responsible parties.”

   “I beg your pardon?” Symeon looked as though he’d been struck. “They’re saying we _attacked_ him? Why on earth would we do that? I don’t even know him.”

   “I’ve only ever seen him from a distance,” Jonathan agreed, dismissive rather than shocked. “I can’t say he ever seemed particularly interesting – but not offensive enough to crush, either.”

   “That’s hardly reassuring, Jonah,” Jace drawled, and Symeon grinned.

   “Apparently, he walked in on the two of you having sexual congress,” Valentine said coolly, and Symeon’s grin snapped in two, into something jagged and vicious. Jace stiffened with blunt surprise, and Jonathan’s eyes went hot with rage. “And was in turn sexually assaulted. After being put to sleep with a rune which summarily vanished.”

   “I hope,” Symeon said coldly, “that the Lightwoods have known better than to spread their disgusting lies around the Clave?”

   “For the moment.”

   “What in Raziel’s name are they thinking?” Jace demanded, nearly rising out of his chair. “Slinging such – such _filth_ at our family?” His expression twisted with disgust and fury. “Will you call Robert out?”

   “I can’t imagine,” their father said mildly. “And no, Janim, I will not. Not so long as they keep their smut to themselves.”

   “Why bother with this at all?” Jonathan asked, lounging in his chair. “It’s ridiculous to take this so seriously. Let them shout it from the rooftops! They’ll be jeered down.”

   “It is true that Symeon can draw runes which leave no scar behind,” Valentine commented – idly, as if he were making an observation on the night’s dinner menu. “And it seems that the boy’s injuries worsen each time they use an _iratze_ on them. I know you have twisted runes to do such things before, Symeon.”

   “And I took the idea from a very famous Clave curse.” Symeon rolled his eyes. “So a _lack_ of evidence, and a curse anyone in the Clave could have handed down, convict me? How novel.” He leaned forward slightly in his chair. “May I put forward an alternative theory?”

   Valentine gestured for him to go on. Jonathan grinned. “I can’t wait to hear this,” he said to no one in particular.

   Jace cuffed the back of his older brother’s head.

   “The boy’s a catamite,” Symeon said bluntly. “Anyone with eyes can see it – he follows men with his eyes the way the rest of us look at girls. I think it far more likely that he was discovered in the wake of some tryst, and panicked that his secret would be discovered.” He spread his hands. “Does it not sound like the ravings of panic to you?” He glanced at Jonathan. “You’re very handsome, I’m sure, but not quite my type.”

   Jonah pulled a mockingly offended expression. “Well, you’re hardly mine either!”

   Jace laughed.

   “Boys,” Valentine chided mildly. His gaze turned sharp as he focussed in on Symeon once more. “And the _iratzes_?”

   “Perhaps his lover was a member of the Clave?” Jace suggested. “It could be a punishment for getting himself caught.”

   “Or a deviant sexual game,” Jonathan drawled. “Perhaps Alexander enjoys pain when he takes it up his – ”

   “Enough, Jonathan.” Valentine had not looked away from his youngest. “You have never expressed any romantic interest in anyone,” he said quietly.

   Symeon’s face froze over, as cold as the depths of Dante’s Hell. “Again, a negative proof. I have not yet found anyone worthy of me, so I must be slipping into my brother’s bed at night? Is that your argument?”

   “No, of course not.” Valentine shook his head. “It is theirs, not mine. The whole question is absurd – I did not mean that comment in conjunction with this farce. I only worry about you.”

   The hard iciness in Symeon’s expression melted. “Just because I’m not a Cassanova like these two,” he gestured at his brothers, “doesn’t mean you need to worry about me, father. I just haven’t found the right person yet.”

   “Yes, well.” Valentine sighed. “I agree with your theory regarding this boy, Symeon. I will tell Robert of his son’s deviance, and that will be the end of it if they have any sense.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Thank you for your patience. The three of you can go.”

   They dipped their heads in acknowledgement and rose from their chairs. The moment the study door closed behind them, Jace confronted them. “All right, what’s going on?”

   Jonathan blinked innocently. “Whatever do you mean?”

   Jace growled and touched his fingertips to his heart, where the triquetra rune rested under his shirt. “I can feel that you’re up to something.”

   “You don’t actually buy that trash, do you?” Symeon asked.

   Jace scoffed. “What, that the two of you are sleeping together? Yes, and by the way, I’m engaged to be married to a werewolf.”

   “Is bestiality worse than incest?” Jonathan mused aloud.

   “But there’s _something_ ,” Jace insisted, ignoring their older brother. Which was only sensible, really. “What is it?”

   Symeon couldn’t resist: he smiled. “That’s for us to know, and you to find out, big brother. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to my book.”

   He left, ignoring Jace’s protests. Jonathan raised his hands defensively when Jace turned on him. “Don’t look at me. I’m not getting in between Symeon and one of his schemes, not even for you.”

   Jace sighed, and resigned himself to containing the fallout when Symeon’s secret eventually exploded. He just hoped it wasn’t as messy as the time with the geruzou demon. That really had been an awful lot of slime.


	6. LP: There Will Be No Third Warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Symeon reveals the full extent of his rune-powers, some people aren't very happy.

Valentine leapt to his feet, drawing a blade in one smooth motion. “Uzziel.”  
  
The seraph sword’s light found skin that gleamed like pearl or shell, like nothing ever born of a mortal mother. A red mouth curled. “Peace, Shadowhunter.”  
  
"Get out." Valentine’s voice was ice; he stepped around the bed, holding his blade between the boy sleeping in it and the new arrival. "I don’t know how you got in here, but you will leave and not return."  
  
The Seelie Queen considered him emotionlessly. She made no move to leave. “We felt what he did,” she said finally.   
  
"He did nothing!"   
  
She raised one eyebrow, like a flick of a calligrapher’s brush, for a bare instant before her flawless face smoothed into impassiveness once more. “You were warned,” she said simply. “Such power as he has does not belong to mortal creatures, Shadowhunter. You will give him to us, or we will kill him. But he will not be allowed to live where you and yours can make a weapon of him.”  
  
"Touch him," Valentine said softly, "and I will remind your people that you are not the immortals you pretend to be. I will bring the full weight of the Nephilim down upon your door. Move against my family, and I swear by the Angel I will bring the power that struck down Gomorrah to raze your hills and túatha."  
  
"No," the Queen answered, arctic. "Your son has already called that power, and it is not one that you can touch, Valentine Morgenstern. It is not a gift given to the Nephilim. You stole it as Prometheus stole the fire, and if you will not give it back, it will be taken from you." Her eyes gleamed white-blue in the seraph blade’s glow. "You have now been warned twice. Give us the boy."  
  
Valentine’s answer was a swing of his sword. The Seelie Queen exploded into a swarm of golden butterflies as it touched her throat, a storm of gleaming light that did not quite disguise the razor edges of the insects’ wings. As one, they flew upwards, and vanished into the shadows of the high ceiling.   
  
It was a long, long while before Valentine sheathed his blade.

* * *

  
  
NB: Uzziel is a cherubim whose name means ‘strength of God’.  
  
Túatha is a Gaelic term for territories, and has been used to refer to faerie hills/the underground kingdoms of the fey.


	7. R: No God On These Streets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Definitely, DEFINITELY should not be considered canon. This is almost certainly not the direction Runed will be taking, but I couldn't get it out of my head, so here it is.
> 
> Written while listening to Jungle - Jamie N Commons & X Ambassadors. I recommend listening to it as you read.

_*There’s too many of them!*_ Alec’s voice in his head, the only way to be heard over the gibbering shrieks and howls of the demon pack breaking against them on every side, a toxic black tide - _*Jace, we have to go, come on!*_

 _*No!*_ Jace ducked and spun, Sanvi morphing even as he moved into a streak of gleaming edges; the blade took the head of a snarling mass with too many teeth, and he felt the impact all up his arm. Ichor splashed across his chest, oil-slick, and there was another, and another, boiling up out of the earth like rats - _*He’s here, I know he is! He’ll come - he will - *_

 _*Jace, this is insane!*_ He couldn’t even see his _parabatai_ anymore, but he could feel Alec still, the icy razor of his skill and the building burn of his fear like a hot coal in Jace’s own chest. _*He’s not here, or if he is he doesn’t care! We have to get to the portal!*_

"I’m not leaving!" Jace shouted. Aloud, defiant, frantic, his senses bombarded with the stink-sight-sound of more monsters than he’d ever seen, serrated fangs and whipping tails, bristling spines, venom-tipped nails that parried Sanvi, driving the blade away with a screech of claw-on-crystal, faster, faster and faster, whirling and lunging and parrying and his arms shook under each blow, his breath coming in hoarse, sandpapered sobs but it didn’t matter because there was no space to breathe anyway, no time. Sweat and ichor dripped into his eyes but he could see enough to tell there was no end to them, and he’d never moved so fast, his blades bright white blurs and it wasn’t enough, he knew it and refused to know it because it couldn’t, just couldn’t be true - 

_He wouldn’t let me die like this -_

If he was even here. If the rumours had been just rumours - if the thing that had taken this city for its own wasn’t his brother - then - then -

Too slow. A hand’s-full of claws skipped past his guard and Jace screamed as they ripped into his chest, blinding, tearing -

 _"*Jace!*"_ Alec’s scream, aloud and in his head -

And with a roar, the dark street exploded.

A dark shadow fell out of the sky like a bolt of black lightning, and suddenly the demons gathered around Jace abandoned him. They broke apart around him like a river around a stone, shrieking with a sound like nails on a chalkboard, screaming like the souls of the damned - too slow.

Too late.

Jace fell to one knee, clutching his chest and panting, dizzied, as Alec bolted to him, catching his shoulders to hold him upright. They watched in gut-punched disbelief as the bolt of ebony light cut through the pack like a scythe through rotted grain. Demons screamed, scattering, fleeing the shadow with golden wings, the shadow etched in black fire with two stars in its hands - but not a one of them was fast enough. They ran, and as they ran they fell, cut down and ripped apart by wings edged in razors, by those twin glittering stars, until ichor ran like a river over the tarmac and into the gutters. 

Until the monster that could make demons run screaming stopped, shoulders rising and falling with hard, exhilarated panting. Jace heard a ribbon of low, velvety laughter, and his blood chilled in his veins.

The golden wings folded away, dissolving into motes of glittering sparks, and the figure turned to them.

Jace felt Alec’s bolt of fear as his own. “God in Heaven,” Alec whispered.

Simon smirked. “There’s no God on my streets, Alec.” His black eyes fell half-lidded as he raised Simiel to his lips and stroked the flat of the blade over his tongue, licking the ichor from the crystal. “So hey there, big brother.” His voice was a purr as he lowered the still-dripping sword, his gaze snapping up to Jace with a dark, wicked grin. “Did you miss me?”


	8. R: Burn It All Down

Jonathan was carefully placing silver pins in a map when Simon burst into the study, his eyes wild.  
  
"He’s gone. He’s _gone_.”  
  
Jonathan rose to his feet. There was no need to ask who Simon meant: only the disappearance of one person could elicit that kind of raging panic in his little brother. “Where?”  
  
"I don’t know!" Sparks and flecks of gold burnt like embers in Simon’s runes, growing brighter with his distress. " _No one_ knows. He never left the Institute - they must have used a portal indoors, it’s the only way all of our watchers could have missed it.” He ran a hand through his hair, his face pale and drawn tight. “The bastards could have sent him anywhere!”   
  
Wordlessly, Jonathan moved around the desk and opened his arms. Simon clung to him, hiding his face against his brother’s neck. “He could be anywhere,” he said again, muffled and miserable and afraid.  
  
"Ssh." Jonathan kissed Simon’s temple, his mind racing. "We’ll find him, Simon. We’ll bring him home."  
  
"How?" Simon pulled out of Jonathan’s embrace to meet his eyes. "Finding one Shadowhunter in the whole world - it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack!"  
  
Jonathan smirked. “Don’t you know, little brother? Finding a needle in a haystack is easy.” He tipped Simon’s chin up and kissed his forehead softly, glancing past his brother to the map on the desk. “You just have to set the hay on fire.”


	9. R: Run As Fast As You Can

Jonathan spat blood and laughed through red-stained teeth. “Is that the best you can do?”   
  
"I’d say we’re doing pretty damn well, actually." His interrogator - Jonathan hadn’t bothered to catch his name - smiled. "But I do wonder what it is you find amusing. Or do you believe your age will save you from the Clave’s justice?"  
  
Jonathan grinned. “Oh, no. I’m not counting on my age at all, Councillor. But I do know you’re not going to get the chance to execute me.”  
  
"Is that so?" Casually, the man drove his fist into the blonde’s stomach; Jonathan choked on a grunt of pain. "My sister died in your father’s war. I assure you, the moment the Counsul representative gets here, I’ll be one of the privileged few watching you die."  
  
Jonathan laughed again, careless of the ache in his abdomen. “You really have no idea, do you? _You took me from him_. He’s going to burn this city to the _ground_ to get me back.” He grinned a bloodstained grin. “Run, little man. Run as fast and as far as you can. There’s an angel of vengeance coming, and he’s going to make Gormorrah look like a little spring cleaning.”  
  
"Who’s coming?" The Shadowhunter demanded. "What are you talking about?" But no matter what he did, how he cut into the boy’s body, Jonathan would say nothing more.  
  
He only laughed.


	10. R: Emery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the death of a child. Nobody dies in this piece, but past horrors are mentioned.

"I said that’s enough!" Jonathan snapped. The line of his back was carved of stone.  
  
Simon ignored the warning in it. “I’m right, aren’t I?” he insisted. “What was it, Jonah? A dog? A cat?” His heart raced. “A falcon, like Jace’s?”  
  
"A _falcon_.” Jonathan spat. “I would never be so pathetic as to cry over a _bird_.”  
  
 _It’s not pathetic to cry for something you love,_ Simon thought. “What, then?” he demanded aloud. “ _Something_ happened. You think I can’t see it? You think I don’t know you weren’t born like this? No one’s _born_ cold, Jonah. Valentine broke something in you, and I bet he did it just like he snapped Jace in half, so tell me, the thing you loved, the thing he took and killed in front of you, _what was it?_ ”

“ _Emery!_ " Jonathan shouted. He spun to face Simon and his face was a snarl, his eyes were on fire and Simon took a step back without pausing to breathe. "His name was _Emery_ and he was six, he was my _friend_ , but when _father_ ,” he spat the word like a slur, “found out that someone had seen me, he dragged Emery in front of me and snapped his neck.” His eyes were not wet. They were screaming. “Are you happy now?” he hissed. “Does that make it better, are you going to _fix_ me now? Or do you want to hear how he beat me afterwards, for letting a stranger see me? Do you want to know how long I lay there, staring at Emery’s corpse because I couldn’t pick myself up off the floor? _Do you feel sorry for me now?_ " he shouted.

Simon stared. His lungs had closed up, tight as moonflowers come dawn. “Were you six too?” he whispered.

Jonathan sneered. “What does that matter?”

 _Yes_.

Jonathan snarled at whatever he saw on Simon’s face; his arm lashed out. Simon flinched, but his brother’s fist found the stacks of books instead of his face, and swept the volumes onto the floor.

"Pick them up," Jonathan ordered harshly, his body snapping towards the door. "And quickly. The Unseelie King won’t wait because you decided to have a Hallmark moment."

He swept from the room, and he took the air with him.


	11. R: Emery 2.0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> See previous chapter's warning.

"Why are you so interested?" Jonathan’s voice was cool, and he didn’t look up from the book in his hands. He turned the parchment pages carefully, frowning down at the paper.  
  
Simon ignored the implicit warning. “I’m right, aren’t I?” he insisted. “What was it, Jonah? A dog? A cat?” His heart raced. “A falcon, like Jace’s?”  
  
Jonathan snorted; the corner of his mouth curled. “A falcon? Please. I would never be so pathetic as to cry over a bird.”  
  
 _It’s not pathetic to cry for something you love,_ Simon thought. “What, then?” he demanded aloud. “ _Something_ happened. You think I can’t see it? You think I don’t know you weren’t born like this? No one’s born cold, Jonah. Valentine broke something in you, and I bet he did it just like he snapped Jace in half, so tell me - the thing you loved, the thing he took and killed in front of you, _what was it?_ ”  
  
"Emery."  
  
Simon waited. “What?” he asked, when it became apparent nothing more was forthcoming.   
  
Jonathan turned the page. “His name was Emery.” His voice was even; he might have been talking about a passing acquaintance he met on the subway, years ago. “He was visiting nearby with his family, and he ended up on our land. He saw me and asked me to play.” He shrugged carelessly. “I suppose we were friends, for a while.”   
  
Ice skittered over and through Simon’s ribcage. It was hard to speak. “What happened?”   
  
"Hm?" Jonathan glanced up from the book. "Oh, father broke his neck. I wasn’t supposed to let strangers see me." He looked back down at the volume in his hand, either ignoring or not noticing how Simon froze. "He was furious. Father, not Emery, obviously."  
  
"Obviously," Simon whispered. He felt sick. "Jonathan." It took effort to get the words out. "Jonah, how old were you?"   
  
Jonathan looked up with an exasperated frown. “Six. Now, can we please get to work? The Unseelie King won’t wait because you decided to have a Hallmark moment.” He picked up another book and pushed it into Simon’s numb fingers. “Start with that one. Look for anything mentioning a ritual.”  
  
And just like that, the topic was closed. But Simon couldn’t make himself see a single word of the pages staring at him - could only see a small body going limp in Valentine’s hands, and a boy with silvery-blonde hair crying.


	12. R: I Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was my original plan for Runed; that Jonathan would kidnap Jace as he did in canon, and Simon would go after them. Only things went wrong and Simon ended up broken, using Fearless to keep himself from screaming every time Jonathan looked at him. 
> 
> But nothing stays broken forever...

Jonathan came awake all at once, like the flip of a switch, and rather than giving himself away he kept his eyes closed and his body still.  
  
"You don’t need to bother," Simon’s voice said idly from somewhere close by. "I know you’re awake."   
  
Jonathan’s eyes flicked open. “Worth a try,” he drawled. He kept his surprise at finding himself in his own room well hidden, made his face a mask so as to give nothing away. He didn’t pull at the leather cuffs around his wrists; he wouldn’t give Simon the satisfaction. “Kinky,” he murmured, tilting his head back to examine them. Thick and padded, they were clipped to his headboard with steel as thick as his thumb. His ankles were caught in a similar arrangement. “But if you wanted to play, darling, you only had to ask.” He smirked. “Didn’t you enjoy yourself last time?”  
  
Simon ignored his taunting. Behind his glasses, his eyes were hard and cool, a far cry from the delicious, terrified little creature his brother had been for the last few weeks, ever since he stopped using the Fearless rune.   
  
"Jace is going to be so sad that you’re using again," Jonathan mused aloud, cruelly mocking. "And here you had us all convinced that you were clean. But you really can’t function without it, can you?"  
  
Unexpectedly, Simon laughed. “I’m not using Fearless,” he said, quiet and amused. “But it’s funny you should mention runes.” Casually he drew his stele out of his pocket, and Jonathan’s heart skipped a beat at the way his brother spun it slowly between his fingers, at the way it shone like a shard of a fallen star in the light.   
  
"I know what you did to Jace," he said softly, and Jonathan felt cold.  
  
"You do, do you?" he asked easily. "I wondered when you’d get around to it. Do you like all the tricks I taught him?" He smirked. "He’s so good with his tongue, isn’t he?"  
  
Simon didn’t blink. He pushed off the wall and strode over to the bed, and Jonathan didn’t let himself tense even as he kept his eyes on that stele.   
  
"This is familiar," he murmured as Simon straddled him. "What’s the matter, Simon? Jace not treating you right?"  
  
"You wish," Simon said softly. "That’s why you wanted me broken, isn’t it? So I wouldn’t touch him - so I wouldn’t find it on him." He smiled. "So I wouldn’t learn it."  
  
"I beg your pardon?" Jonathan raised one eyebrow, pulling a bored expression from his bag of masks. "What are you babbling about now?"  
  
Wordlessly, without taking his eyes from Jonathan’s, Simon reached up and pulled down the neck of his grey t-shirt, baring the rune carved into his collarbone.  
  
Jonathan’s mask shattered like glass. “You wouldn’t,” he said harshly, instantly comprehending Simon’s intentions and not bothering to pretend otherwise. “You _couldn’t_.”  
  
Simon smirked. “Oh, I really, really can,” he said softly. His eyes burned, and he swept the tip of his stele over Jonathan’s throat, as light as the caress of a fingernail. “And after what you did to me - to _Jace_ \- I’m going to enjoy it.”  
  
Jonathan snarled and wrenched at the cuffs, throwing everything he had into it, every drop of the ichor in his veins into lunging for Simon’s throat. The metal headboard groaned, but both it and the restraints held and Simon only laughed.   
  
"You look so good like this," he mocked, pushing up Jonathan’s shirt. He blithely ignored Jonathan’s fury, his vicious attempts to get free. The cuffs were not going to snap. None of it was going to break - except his older brother. "Look at you. Are you feeling scared yet?" He shoved the fabric up by Jonathan’s shoulders, under his chin.   
  
His voice softened, melting into a purr - velvet over ice. “Are you desperate yet?”  
  
Jonathan snarled again, but there was something in his eyes - something that shot through Simon like a knife, like sparks on oil. “You had the chance to kill me months ago, and you didn’t take it,” Jonathan forced out, and Simon laid his palm against the blonde’s chest, feeling Jonathan’s breaths come faster and faster. “You won’t do this. It’s not in you.”  
  
Simon smiled. “It really, really is,” he whispered. “God, you have no idea.”  
  
Jonathan bucked and twisted, pulling viciously at his wrists to no avail. “I’ll break it,” he hissed. “Just like Jace did; I will break it and make you wish you’d never been born.”  
  
"I don’t think you will." Simon ran his fingertips over Jonathan’s chest, his lips curving as Jonathan suppressed a flinch. "Jace couldn’t break it for himself. Only when you hurt _me_.” He glanced up at Jonathan’s face. “Do you have anyone you care about that much, Jonathan?” he asked mockingly.   
  
The blonde bared his teeth rather than answer. “Jace will hate you for it,” he threw at Simon, and, yes, his _eyes_. He was getting desperate, searching for an argument, a way out, anything that Simon could not refute. “He’ll look at you and see me looking back at him. It will _break_ him.”  
  
Simon laughed. He leaned down, grinning as his hand pressed down under Jonathan’s jaw, pinning his head against the pillow. His other hand brought the point of the stele down against Jonathan’s heart.   
  
"Jace," Simon murmured, close enough to kiss and half-considering it with that frantic fear dawning in Jonathan’s eyes, "is in the next room, waiting to hear you scream."  
  
And as he carved Lilith’s binding rune into Jonathan’s heart and soul - the submissive mirror to the one on his own skin - he hoped Jace was enjoying it.


	13. R: The Laying On of Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone on tumblr requested Jimon smut. This...was what they got!
> 
>  **Warnings for: very dark!Simon, blood kink/blood-play, non-graphic murder, marking kink, BDSM or D/s themes, talk of collaring, canon character death**.
> 
> Runed verse, should absolutely _not_ be considered canon in any respect!

The Institute doors shuddered as the monster outside brought his power to bear against them; dust sifted down from the ceiling as wood and steel groaned under the pressure.

“Hold!” Robert ordered the assembled Shadowhunters as they muttered and exchanged anxious glances. Nothing in Robert’s mien gave away the knot of unease in his own belly. Nothing could breach the sanctity of an Institute on blessed ground. Not even that  _thing_ outside. “Don’t be afraid. The Angel will protect his sanctuary.”

The blasts stopped. For a long, breathless moment, silence reigned.

Robert was beginning to let himself hope that a reprieve had come when the sound of laughter came through the doors, low and terrible.

“Are you ready to stop playing yet?” a too-familiar voice called from outside, cruelly mocking. “Open the doors, Lightwood.”

Robert slid into a ready stance, even as he reminded himself that the doors would not possibly give way. “Leave this place!” he shouted, keeping the shiver of fear from his voice. “It is not open to you.”

“Oh, Uncle Raziel’s clubhouse will open up for his favourite nephew,” Simon answered, and his amusement dropped ice into Robert’s stomach. “If I ask nicely. But I don’t think you want that to happen.” The dark amusement cooled; became chilled, sharp steel. “Give him to me, and I’ll leave the rest of you breathing.” 

Robert gripped his seraph blade. “You won’t lay one hand on my son,” he hissed, too low, surely, for anyone to hear through the thick doors.

Simon’s laughter rang like clashing swords, as loud and clear as if he were in the entry hall with them. “I’ll do a lot more than that to him, Lightwood.” His voice dropped to a hiss, savage and unquestionably demonic. “And I’ll do it drenched in your blood if you don’t _let. me. in.”_

“Never.” His voice did not shake. 

He almost heard the monster’s careless shrug. “So be it.” 

A single note, pure and sweet as white light shone through crystal, cut through the world like a blade, and Robert watched, blood dripping from his ringing ears, as the Institute doors swung open as if before a king. Around him Shadowhunters fell to the floor, clutching their bloodied ears as the glass windows shuddered and shattered, and the thing that had once been Simon walked through the shards as if through falling snow.

He smiled. “I warned you,” he said.

And the midnight black of his eyes reached out, and swallowed Robert whole.

*

They had packed the Institute to the gills to protect the treasure at its heart. Simon didn’t care. The ones who ran, he let live, but Shadowhunters weren’t bred to run.

He ripped the rest apart. Simiel stayed in its cuff, gleaming like diamond on its wrist; for this, he used his hands, and his power, and left a river of red behind him. Screams marked his way through the building like heralds’ trumpets, so loud that he almost didn’t hear the frantic thumping on the other side of the final door before the last insect was dead at his feet.

When he heard it at last, it made him grin.

The door had been bound with a dozen locking runes; they flared once beneath his fingers, and burned out like old bulbs.

Simon stepped aside, and the door sprang open as Jace hit it again.

“Clary did that once,” he commented, amused. Jace dropped the chair at the sight of him, his gold eyes going wide.

“Simon - ”

“Ssh,” Simon crooned. He stepped into the room, his  _(red, dripping)_  hands coming up to cup Jace’s face. “Ssh, dearling, ssh. I’m here now.”

Jace’s throat bobbed, swallowed. “S-Simon - you’re -” 

“ - Here,” Simon murmured. He stroked Jace’s lip with a bloody thumb, and felt Jace shudder, felt his spine melt, boneless, into Simon’s touch as his other hand stroked down Jace’s back. “I’m here. Did you think I wouldn’t come for you?”

“Not like this,” Jace whispered. He was trying to fight it, trying to be horrified, but his pupils were swallowing the sight, breathing in the scent of it - oh, he was breathing faster already, almost panting as Simon licked Jace’s mouth and purred. “Raziel, Simon, how many?”

“All of them,” Simon breathed. He brushed his lips over Jace’s jaw, leaving a smear of crimson on that golden skin. “Everyone who stood between us.” He dragged his teeth over Jace’s pulse, savoring the hot, fluttering beat against his lips. “You’re mine now, Jace. You’re  _mine.”_

He sank his teeth into Jace’s throat - and Jace moaned, melting against Simon’s chest as his knees gave out, his fingers tangling in Simon’s soaked shirt and Simon purred approvingly, tangling a hand in Jace’s hair and wrapping the other around his waist, holding him up, holding him close to take the Mark of Simon’s teeth.  _Mine_ , and Jace was so good, bared his neck like a good boy as his moan turned to whimpers, his hips pressing urgently into Simon’s, panting, half-writhing in Simon’s arms -

Simon pulled back, snatched a breath. “That’ll do until we get you collared,” he said hoarsely, and before Jace could speak Simon took his mouth, Jace’s hair twisted around his fingers and his head pulled back, forced to take it as Simon kissed him hard, deep, bloody. But Jace kissed back, of course he did, clinging to Simon and drinking him in, drinking him down like a starving man, taking the blood and the teeth and moaning around Simon’s tongue, rocking against him, and it took all Simon had not to throw him down on the carpet and fuck him open with bloodied fingers -

“C-collar?” Jace panted between kisses, his eyes dark and drugged and Simon smirked, stroked his fingers over the darkening bruise on Jace’s throat and watched him groan.

“It’s waiting for you at home,” he purred, and Jace jerked against his thigh, gasping, shocked and hungry and blindly  _wanting_.

Simon purred again and nuzzled him, kissing some of the blood from his skin. “Good boy,” he murmured, a snarl of hunger catching in his throat as Jace _whimpered_. “Don’t worry, dearling.

“I’ll never let anyone take you away from me again.”


	14. R: An Angel Falls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the original ending I had planned for Runed. Reading over it now makes me cringe - I know I'm a better writer than I was when I first wrote this! But I thought you guys might...enjoy it.
> 
> Literally nothing about this is true anymore. My original plan was that Sebastian was Jonathan, the way he is in the books; he would kidnap Simon, like he kidnapped Jace in canon, and use a controlling rune like in CoLS to make Simon do what he wanted - which was end the world. That entire plotline has since been scrapped, and _nothing_ in this snippet should be considered predictive for Runed - not Jonathan being alive, not Jace's relationship with Simon, and not the identities of those who survived to the end of the series. I'm only sharing this because not one word of it counts as a spoiler anymore. 
> 
> Consider it fanfiction of the main series, and you're good to go.
> 
> **Trigger warnings for major character death. There is also a character cutting themselves and plenty of blood.**
> 
> Also, apologies to any Hebrew speakers. I used Google Translate for the Hebrew in this and I'm sure it's all horrifically wrong.

   “Jonathan!” Jace shouted, watching helplessly from behind the walls of his prison as Simon drew Simiel’s point down his left arm. “Please, _please don’t do this!_ You don’t need to do this!”

   Simon’s expression didn’t flicker as the seraph blade parted his skin like paper, revealing blood like crimson ink. It traced calligraphy over his arm, over skin that Jace had kissed a thousand thousand times, and Simon switched the knife to his other hand.

   Jonathan turned on Jace with a queer, glittering light in his eyes. “Why not?” he asked, and he sounded curious, as though Simon wasn’t cutting his other arm beside him. “Isn’t this the sort of thing monsters do?”

   “What are you _talking_ about?” Jace demanded helplessly. Simon sheathed the bloodstained seraph blade at his belt and stood calmly, his arms hanging at his sides so that the blood ran down to his wrists, spreading over his palms and fingers like jewellery, like lace.

   It started dripping onto the earth, and Jace couldn’t look away from it.

   Jonathan continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Father always said that demons couldn’t love,” he mused aloud. “I didn’t understand why it mattered, at first. Until I realised that it was his way of saying that they could never _be_ loved, either.”

   “What does that matter?” Jace’s fear was a live thing, beating bronze wings in his ribcage, slicing him to ribbons from the inside. _Drip. Drip. Drip._ Simon’s blood was falling, and Jace was the only one who seemed to even notice. “Jonathan, please, _please!_ He’s bleeding!” It shredded at him, and he couldn’t even touch the walls of the Malachi Configuration holding him captive. It surrounded him in a wash of blue, and unlike the one drawn by the long-ago Inquisitor Jonathan’s Configuration arched over Jace’s head, encasing him in a box of cobalt crystal and fire.

   “It matters because he was wrong!” Jonathan snarled. “Demons _can_ love – I’ve seen it, and you, you must have too – demons who dote on their warlock siblings, on their friends, their family!”

   Jace barely heard him. The flecks of gold in Simon’s runes were growing brighter, shining like tiny stars in the black darkness of the Marks, and the sight sent unease clawing up his throat. It was beautiful, but nothing about this could ever be a good thing.

   “It’s just that humans can’t love them,” Jonathan said, almost to himself. “That’s – that’s all.” His expression flickered. “Begin it, Simon.”

   Wordlessly, Simon went down on one knee on the grass, bowing his head as if in supplication. He held his arms extended in front of him, and Jace didn’t understand how, but he could have sworn the blood was flowing more strongly than it had been a moment ago, threads and drops rolling down the sides of Simon’s arms and onto the dirt. Simon began to murmur, something soft and private like a prayer, too low for Jace to make out the words, and he watched helplessly as the golden lights in Simon’s runes began to shimmer more brightly.

   Jonathan pressed his first two fingers of each hand to Simon’s wrists. “Bʼlybtʻ pwn dy wwʻlt ʼwn ʼalʻ zyyan mʻntşn, wwʼs hʼlt dyyn tryyaşʼapt?”

   Jace’s spine turned to ice as he recognised the Yiddish tongue and translated automatically. _Beloved of the world and all its peoples, who holds your allegiance?_ Jonathan had asked.

   _Beloved. The beloved sacrifice._ Jace screamed uselessly, but neither of his brothers so much as blinked.

   “Myyan nşmh gʻhʻrt ẕw hyml ʼwn zyyan mlʼkym,” Simon answered softly. _My soul belongs to heaven and all its angels._ His blood began to shimmer as it fell, turning to molten gold where the light caught it. Was he growing pale? Was the blood loss beginning to have an effect yet?

   “Jonathan, please!” Jace begged. “I’ll do it, you can use me, just let him go! _Jonathan!_ ”

   His elder brother glanced at him, his eyes unreadable. “You know you don’t fulfil the requirements, Jace,” he chided gently. “Now be quiet, or I’ll have to silence you.” He turned back to Simon. “Dʻrybʻr lʼázn hyml zʻn ʼyr,” he said softly, his face shining with something close to rapture, “ʼwn wwysn ʼyr, ʼwn ẕyykn ʼyr p̄ʼar zyyan ʼyygn.”

   _Then let Heaven see you, and know you, and mark you as its own._

   Simon cried out, a piercing, aching scream that stabbed through Jace like a sword and he shouted with his brother, wordless and helpless. “ _What is this about?”_ he screamed, as the flecks in Simon’s runes grew to blinding, golden light streaming out of them as if pieces of the sun had been set into Simon’s skin, tracing and eclipsing the black Marks with white fire. “You’re not a demon, Jonathan, you’re not, you don’t need demons to have a family! Valentine lied, you know he did! You don’t have to listen to him, please, Jonathan, _please!_ ”

   A flicker of uncertainty ran over Jonathan’s face, and he hesitated, hesitated so long that Jace dared to hope.

   But then Jonathan shook his head, and breathed “Hʻkʻrwng, zwn pwn hyml, ʼwn ʼarbʻt dyyn wwʻt.”

_Rise, son of Heaven, and work your will._

   Simon moved to his feet, and the blood pouring from his wounds was gold, molten and hissing where it hit the ground, scorching his skin, and Jace could hardly look at him for the light streaming out of his Marks. He raised his hands in front of him, palms out, and spread his fingers. Blood, and blood, and blood; his arms were sheathed in it, and for a moment he stood frozen, paused in the midst of an act Jace couldn’t understand.

   And then he moved; his hands flew apart, as if he were gesturing sharply for silence from a crowd, and suddenly everything was fire and crystal, like the walls of the Configuration but a thousand, a million times greater. It enveloped everything; Jace could faintly see the grass and hills and shadow of Alicante far off, but it was like looking through frosted glass. The earth, the sky, every iota of space in the universe had been filled with those white and silver flames, with that opalescent crystal; they ran through everything and over it, inside it and out, inextricably entwined with every atom and molecule and Jace realised abruptly what he was looking at. These – this – was the wall between worlds. These were the world-wards.

   For a moment, despite everything, he forgot where he was and what was happening. The wall was beautiful, the most exquisite, glorious thing he had ever seen, greater than anything he could have ever imagined. The wild roar of the fire, louder than any ocean, and the moon-like shine of the stone held him hypnotised. But the longer he looked, the more he began to see that the reality did not match the picture in his mind. It was as if he knew instinctively what it ought to look like – perfect and untouched, a force of nature timed a thousand – but his eyes told him that something was wrong. The flames were dim in places, the crystal cracked. He couldn’t see any actual holes but it was sharply, painfully easy to imagine that in other places, in other parts of the world, there were outright breaches.

   And Jonathan wanted to bring it all crashing down. Would kill Simon to do it.

   Jace forced his eyes to focus, to peer through the blinding glare. It wasn’t so simple as saying that Simon had his hands on the wall, because the wall wasn’t in front of him – or, if it was, it was also inside him, and above and below him, and behind him. The wall just _was_ , but Simon had his hands on it, smudging bloody golden handprints on the stone.

   Bloody handprints. _His_ blood, flowing like two golden rivers from his arms, and Shadowhunters replaced lost blood at thrice the speed of mundanes, but it was not humanly possible that Simon would last much longer. The light blazing from his runes rivalled that of the wall.

   “You have a family!” Jace cried desperately. It was no good screaming at Simon; the red rune on his chest meant he would never hear, never listen. Meant that he couldn’t. “You don’t need demons, Jonathan, you have _us!_ ”

   “Oh, please,” Jonathan sneered. “You would say anything to save your little paramour, Jace. And I know full well he’s the only reason you ever stayed.”

   “Maybe in the beginning,” Jace said desperately. “But not always! By the Angel, you think I _wanted_ to fall in love with you?” He wasn’t sure if his vision was blurring from the incredible light or the tears bleeding from his eyes, from the frantic, screaming fear tearing him apart. “I was supposed to hate you,” he cried, “but I couldn’t, I _couldn’t_ , Simon loved you and he showed me how to love you too – you idiot, Jonah, _we love you_ , and you’re killing him, please, please don’t, please don’t hurt him any more – ” He hadn’t cried for thirteen years, not since he was six years old and Valentine killed the falcon that was his only friend, but he was sobbing now, dying with this helplessness, with having to watch Simon bleed out and Jonathan destroy himself, having to watch both his brothers die in different ways.

   “Please,” he begged, “please, Jonah, please don’t do this – I love you, _I love you_ , Jonah, _please!_ ”

   Jonathan was staring at him, and Jace had never seen him look like that – never seen strong, confident Jonathan look so vulnerable, so uncertain and fragile. It made him seem six years old, and Jace knew, in that moment, that Jonathan had had his own version of the falcon – his own version, and it had been worse than anything their father had ever done to Jace.

   “I love you,” Jace whispered. “Simon loves you. We both do, Jonah, and we’ll love you forever. We’re your family. We love you.”

    Jonathan’s eyes were like broken glass. “He doesn’t,” he said, and Jace knew instantly who he meant, even before his brother added “It’s just the rune. If it wasn’t for that – ”

   “ _I_ love you,” Jace said quietly, fervently. His heart was pounding, hard enough to break.

   Jonathan didn’t say _really?_ even though Jace guessed he was desperate to. Jace felt the moment hang between them, brittle and fragile and jagged, and willed Jonathan to believe him. “I swear on the Angel,” he said urgently. “ _I love you_ , Jonah.”

   Jonathan’s breath hissed through his teeth, quick and pained, and Jace wished anew that Valentine had died the death he deserved, the one he was owed for all the pain he’d inflicted on his sons.

   “I swear it,” Jace whispered.

   Jonathan stared at him. “Simon,” he called quietly, without taking his eyes from Jace. “Stop.” His voice broke. “You can – stop.”

   Jace’s knees didn’t so much go weak with relief as they were cut out from under him; he fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, catching himself on the hard earth on his hands and knees. His bones were paper and his eyes were burning, and he felt like a prisoner sentenced to death granted a reprieve at the very last moment.

   Because that’s what he _was_.

   But “Simon,” Jonathan said urgently, and Jace looked up, his heart skipping a beat at the note of panic – Jonathan never, ever panicked – “ _Stop!_ ”

   Simon stepped away from the wall, and for a moment Jonathan’s fear didn’t make any sense – Simon was obeying, just as he had to, with the red rune on his chest. But he was also glowing brighter and brighter, and through the glare Jace could see that he was smiling, a real, loving smile, and it shouldn’t have made his heart ice over _but it did_.

   “I order you to stop!” Jonathan shouted, and there was a rune on the wall, one painted on in golden blood, and it didn’t say _open_ , the way Jonathan had planned it to; Jace’s eyes flicked over it and read _close_ and he didn’t understand, _he didn’t understand_.

   Simon’s smile softened, and he spread his hands in front of him in a _what can you do?_ gesture. “Did you really think,” he said softly, and no, that smile, that gentle, loving smile, even the blood pouring from Simon’s arms wasn’t as terrifying as the curve of his mouth, “that after all that training, I wouldn’t work out how to switch it off?”

   Jonathan stood frozen, gut-punched and stunned as Jace had never seen him. “How long?” he whispered.

   Simon stepped close to him and Jace wanted to cry out as he brought his hand to cup Jonathan’s cheek, because the gesture spilled more blood and it burned Jonathan where it touched him, as if it really was the molten metal it appeared to be. But Jonathan didn’t flinch.

   Whatever Simon said was too soft for Jace to hear, but the choked, _destroyed_ sound Jonathan made said it all. He looked stripped, for once, all the layers and masks ripped away to leave his heart bare and raw in his eyes, and for a moment Jace was sure, utterly _sure_ that the gentleness in the chaste kiss Simon pressed to his lips would kill their elder brother.

   “Jonah, he needs an _iratze_ ,” Jace called urgently. “He’s – he’s still – ”

    _Bleeding._

    It seemed to wake Jonathan up; he blinked as if waking from a dream and reached for Simon, but their youngest brother twisted away and back. He spread his fingers and opened his mouth, and light poured out of it, a slender ribbon of golden light that was also a slew of rippling notes. The melody coalesced in mid-air, the ribbon twisted, and where Simon’s blood had fallen to the earth there were seven runes burning around Jonathan’s feet.

   Jonathan looked down sharply, and then jerked his head up, his eyes gone wild. “ _No_ ,” he said fiercely. “I forbid it. _I forbid it!_ ”

   Simon’s smile was touched with something sad. “You don’t actually have the power to forbid me,” he said gently. “You never really did.”

   Jonathan shrieked, so sudden and inhuman that Jace flinched with surprise. Jonathan ripped out his seraph blades and slammed them into the empty air; there was a sound like glass on glass and they bounced off, unharmed but the prison unbroken. Jonathan snarled and did it again, and then again, and Simon turned away from him to look at Jace.

   “Simon,” Jace managed, “what are you doing?” His baby brother looked nearly carved of light, those golden, burning runes on his skin moving over his body like the dance of the spheres, slow and graceful but clearly, definitely _moving_ of their own accord. And he was bleeding, bleeding so badly. “You need to be healed – you can do it yourself, just a couple of _iratzes_ – ”

   But Simon shook his head. “Look after him,” he said, nodding his head at Jonathan snarling and battling with his cage, uselessly. “He’s going to need it for a while – maybe forever. So – don’t leave him alone, okay? Promise me.”

   “I promise,” Jace answered automatically, before what he was swearing to actually processed. It was Simon, he would always, always give Simon whatever he wanted –

   Simon smiled. “Love you,” he said warmly. He glanced back at Jonathan. “Love you too, you idiot,” he said fondly, and Jace wasn’t imagining it, beneath the light moving over his skin Simon was pale, white as pearls and trembling, and the promise he’d just made traced itself like a rune on the back of his eyes and Simon turned back to the wall and Jace screamed, flung himself to his feet and slammed into the blue wall of the Configuration and the pain was nothing, _it was nothing because Simon –_

   Pulled Simiel from his belt and whispered its name so that it turned into a shard of starlight in his hand, and –

   Spread his arms wide –

   Jonathan shrieked again, a harpy’s cry, but it couldn’t drown out the single note that Simon sang; it reverberated as though Simon had struck a gong at the heart of the world and Jace felt it in his chest, in his bones, heard gates closing and bars being dropped into place, bolts sliding home, locks turning, drawbridges rising, vaults slamming shut, padlocks clicking closed. And because it was Simon, there was the also beep of a key-card lock flashing red, the chime of a computer asking for a password, the music of a keypad rejecting a code.

   _Close_ , Simon sang, _close forever, lock and never open for anyone again_ , and the light in his Marks flared incandescent, brighter than bright and for a moment, just for a moment Jace thought he saw wings –

   Just for a moment.

   Because Simiel flashed, darting like a shooting star, and Jace screamed Simon’s name but his brother didn’t answer, didn’t answer and didn’t answer as his heart’s blood blazed against the wall and the world-wards howled like an army of demons and Simon –

   Simon crumpled –

   Jace didn’t know if the Configuration had been tied to Simon somehow, but his prison sparked and vanished just as Jonathan’s did, just as the world-wards vanished from his sight, but he didn’t care, couldn’t care, Simon lay on the ground like a pile of rags and Jace dropped down beside him and turned him over, desperate, touching him like he was made of glass, in case he might shatter under Jace’s fingers.

   If Simon shattered Jace would put him back together, piece by piece if it took him till Judgement Day and sliced his hands to ribbons.

   But there were no pieces. Jace stared blankly at the glitter of Simiel thrust through Simon’s heart, a crystal bar extending from his chest, and the sight simply refused to make sense. Just as the calligraphic burns on Simon’s skin made no sense, blackened and charred; or his eyes, glazed like pottery and staring unblinking up at the sky.

   It didn’t make sense.

   It didn’t make sense.

   It didn’t make sense.

   When Jace blinked, evening had fallen. The air was cooler than it had been. His body felt hollow and stiff, and his eyes ached badly. He couldn’t see Jonathan anywhere. But Alec was standing beside him, saying something that Jace couldn’t figure out how to hear. There were other people, too, but they were lost in the fog. Alec was the only one he could feel; the _parabatai_ bond cut through to his soul, past the icy numbness, and Jace turned to look at him. He felt as though his skeleton had been turned to stone and lead.

   There were tears on Alec’s face, and Jace tried to ask him why he was crying, but the sound that came out of his throat was nothing close to words.

   Alec seemed to understand, though; he reached out and hugged Jace tightly. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and Jace didn’t know what he was sorry for, wondered idly what his _parabatai_ had done because usually it was Jace getting into trouble. It wasn’t like Alec to have anything to apologise for.

   He would have hugged back, but his arms were already full.

   “ _Simon!_ ” A woman’s scream, and suddenly Jocelyn was there, shoving her way through the small knot of people. At the sight of Jace’s burden she froze. “No,” she moaned, shaking her head frantically as she went down on her knees beside Jace and Alec, as hard as if someone had slashed her tendons, “no, not my baby, not my boy...” She ran shaking hands over the air above the corpse’s face, not quite able to touch. “Not Simon,” she whispered.

   She looked up, and Jace watched the agony morph into something like hate, something that burned worse than hellfire. “What did you do?” she spat, and there was a gleaming seraph blade in her hand. “Nathanael – ” Her weapon came unsheathed, bright and sharp as ice, “ _what did you do?_ ”

   Jace stared at the cold iridescence of her blade. “I didn’t,” he whispered. “I...”

   With a snarl, Jocelyn jerked her head to silence him. “Give him to me,” she hissed. “Get your filthy hands off of my son.”

   Jace blinked. It was all he could do. Letting go of Simon was like releasing a doll; the body hung limp and empty, and Jace’s arms twinged as Jocelyn dropped her knife and took the burden from him, curling her arms around it possessively, as if it meant something, as if it had any value.

   Jace climbed unsteadily to his feet. “He died bravely and with honour,” he said. “ _Ave atque vale_ , Simon.”

   Jocelyn looked up at him; the setting sun set fire to the tears streaking her face. “Do you think I care about that?” she demanded hoarsely. “Do you think I care – do you think that _matters_ – ”

   Jace didn’t stay to listen. He turned and started walking, ignoring the sounds from behind him.

   He heard-felt Alec chase after him. “Where are you going?” his _parabatai_ asked anxiously.

   “I have no idea,” Jace heard himself say lightly. “Away, I suppose. Someplace where I don’t have to listen to all the wailing.”

   Alec flinched. “You don’t mean that,” he said tightly. “Jace – ”

   “What?” Jace asked coldly.

   He could feel Alec’s helplessness like a hummingbird in his chest. Alec had no idea what real helplessness was. Helplessness was a not a small, delicate bird; it was a black hole pulling you in. “What happened?” Alec whispered.

   Jace looked at him, and couldn’t make his face move. His cheeks and brow were stiff as hard wax; his mouth and eyes like stones glued to a clumsy pencil sketch. “The world ended,” he said, and then he was crying, crying his dead heart out because they were gone, the two people he loved most in the world were gone, and Simon, Simon was never coming back.

   He felt Alec’s shock at seeing his tears – and then he felt his _parabatai_ ’s arms as Alec pulled him in tight and it didn’t matter, didn’t matter because nothing, nothing would ever be all right again.

* * *

 

  

 Bʼlybtʻ pwn dy wwʻlt ʼwn ʼalʻ zyyan mʻntşn, wwʼs hʼlt dyyn tryyaşʼapt?

Beloved of the world and all its people, who holds your allegiance?

 

Myyan nşmh gʻhʻrt ẕw hyml ʼwn zyyan mlʼkym.

My soul belongs to Heaven and all its angels.

 

Dʻrybʻr lʼázn hyml zʻn ʼyr, ʼwn wwysn ʼyr, ʼwn ẕyykn ʼyr p̄ʼar zyyan ʼyygn.

Then let Heaven see you and know you and mark you as its own.

 

Hʻkʻrwng, zwn pwn hyml, ʼwn ʼarbʻt dyyn wwʻt.

Rise, son of Heaven, and work your will.


End file.
